How's the House?

This post is dedicated to one very special person, for several reasons... she travelled over 2,000 miles last year just to come see me for a weekend, she motivated me in my decorating, she motivated me to do this post, and she's my sister. So Stephanie, this post is for you!

Here are some pictures of our house now that we've been in it over a year. I realized that I posted the entire building process, but never any photo's of our house 'lived in.'

One of my favorite places is the kitchen, of course, here's an overall view.

      

I did some little berries above the crown molding for just a fun little detail.

                                    

I bought these big glass canisters at Walmart and then had the vinyl lettering made for the fronts.

I felt like the corner of the 'dining room' needed something so I found a large vase at Pier 1 and filled it with willowy branches that I cut to different lengths (this was inspired by Stephanie).

In our living room, I put up a shelf for our VCR so I didn't have to have a table right under the TV and put up some fun candle holders (I know there's a cooler word for it but I can't think of it right now).

This is a collection of frames that I have going up the stairs, I'm only missing most of the pictures to fill the frames. :)

I chose this quote and had it made in vinyl for the stairway underneath my big clock.

This is one of my more recent projects, getting a guest room put together rather than having an empty room where we could blow up the air mattress (When Ron and Maria were here the air mattress had a hole and even after trying to patch it they woke up every morning on the floor). The quilt was made by my Grandma Ricks and the red flowers fit perfect with the room.

We finally got a bedroom set, and we both love it!  We got it from a clearance center in Oregon, which means cheap and tax free.

I like this little nook at the top of the stairs...Books! And I finally figured out how to get our large wedding portrait to fit well in its frame.

I covered the back of the bookcase with some fun fabric thanks to an idea that my other wonderful sister, Elise gave me.

Oh, and the upstairs 'loft' area just came together this last month.  I finally got my hope chest that I've been needing to pick out since I graduated from USU.

And my parents brought us some extra pieces of furniture from my Grandma Rick's house. I love the way it all looks together!

I have to include this little picture for those of you who know me and my love of organizing. This is in our laundry room as you come in from the garage. It used to be a pile of shoes and a bunch of boxes. It was a mess, until I bought a shoe rack and a thingy to hold by broom and Swiffer. It just puts a smile on my face that it's nice and clean now.

I've been working on a garden, here in rocky West Richland.  It's been a rewarding challenge already just to see everything start to grow.  Here's the vegetables; I planted beans, cucumbers, a variety of tomatoes, a variety of sweet peppers, and a variety of herbs.

When my parents came up in May they brought several plants from my Grandma's garden.  I've kept most of them alive so far.  This is my rhubarb...I'm dreaming about yummy rhubarb pies this summer!

In this picture you can kind of see the two rose bushes... and then there are several flowers we put in the beds around the front of the house.

I hope everything keeps growing, I love going out and watering them after a stressful day at work and it helps me to unwind.

In closing I just want to mention what a beautiful and nice day it's been today.  I've been really stressed and busy at work lately and the weekends have been such a nice escape (more posts to follow with details and pictures).  Today the weather has been in the mid-80's and I've accomplished so many things that I wanted to.  Also, as I've been sitting here at the computer I've been listening to some neighbor  play a bagpipe outside, What?!